Daddy's Dark One
by cloudofcalm
Summary: When Ethan discovers that he is a father and that his dark magic has affected his child, he seeks out the Slayer and watcher to save the kid from further harm
1. By the pricking of my thumbs

**Disclaimer: I do not own Buffy the Vampire Slayer or anything relating to it, they are the property of Joss Whedon and ME. **

**This is in answer to a challenge at the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Archive, written by gidgetgirl, so I don't own that, either.**

**A/N: I said I gave up fanfic. I have, really, I just- got stuck on original. And fanfic is much easier to write. So this got born. If you like it, please review it, and I might continue.**

*

'_Tainted'_, whispered the darkness around her. She curled closer into a ball, her shoulders shuddering with it. They spoke to her, and bit, and crawled, sneaking nearer. She didn't want them, but they chased her. 

The room around her glowed faintly, light flaring from half a dozen crystals dotted about it. The child's back arched, and then the pursuers were forgotten as she hunched up in the bed, her fists balled, fast asleep. 

The chanting fell to silence, as the women watched over the girl. 

"She's asleep," whispered a motherly looking woman, her hair greying around her temples and a rather faded woollen cardigan with half the buttons done up wrong. "Poor lamb. Needs it."

"Yes," agreed the other, as different from the other as it was possible to be. The barely-out-of-her-teens woman gazed over the bed with a look of sympathy on her face, a look that seemed oddly out of place with her shock of pink hair, and piercings. "Her mum's gone, you know, Maud. Didn't stay." She glanced at the older woman for a reaction. Maud's lips tightened silently, but she nodded. 

"I didn't expect she would stay. Not really the type. Had no idea what as happening. Best place for the child, anyway, without an pig-ignorant woman poking in."

A ripple of laughter burst from the younger woman that she hastily checked. They both glanced at the bed, but the girl didn't stir. Dark hair fanned out across the pillow, her face turned to the opposite wall. 

"We are here to help everyone," she said, in a tone coloured with humour. "You advocate that, Maud."

"I know, Hannah, I know," Maud said crossly. "We took in that American, didn't we? Open to everyone who needs help. What gets me is that she could see something was wrong and didn't even help her child until now." She turned to leave the room, followed obediently by the pink-haired Hannah. Maud paused at the door, glancing back at the bed. 

"She'll sleep through the night now, poor dear," she said finally, closing the door behind them. 

*

"_Tainted,"_ they whispered, but more faintly. She could hear them, they would wait, but they couldn't fight, and steal her tonight. She drifted further into dreamless sleep, one arm hanging down from the bed, a cruel black mark that was part of her flesh. Menacing, it stood out against the pale skin that glimmered in the comforting light of the crystals. 

The same mark flared into hot pain on his arm as Ethan Rayne sat up in bed, sweat pouring from his temples, his face creased with fear, the last images dancing through his head, laughing mockingly. They had not forgotten him. 

The same group of people, screaming, laughing, dancing, singing, talking flashed into Rupert Giles's mind as he lay in bed, the light still on, and a book sprawled across his chest, his glasses half off his nose. He was remembered. 

"Oh dear," Giles said grimly, tossing back the covers purposefully. 

*

A/N: Who is she, how did she come to pass, and what the hell does Ethan or Giles have to do with it all? 

Review please! 


	2. Something wicked this way comes

**Disclaimer: I do not own BTVS, and all the rest of that crap. I don't own canon. It is created, and owned by Joss Whedon, ME, and the imaginations of the viewers. **

**I do not own the idea, that is a challenge by gidgetgirl on the Chocolate Covered Strawberry Archive. **

**A/N: This will most likely remind people of gidgetgirl's 'There Be Dragons' Danni story. I have read it, it is an influence, and believe me I know the risks of copying that. However – I do believe myself able to stay away from it. So there ya go, gidget will inform any reviewers if I cross the line, probably a ,'Alice, what the hell do you think you are doing?' reaction, so keep the eyes out. Could be amusing. *grin*Oh, and if you haven't read gidgetgirl's thing, go read it. She's in my fave authors list. As if there's a list she's not on. **

**For the rest – I hope this is confusing as hell, because it damn well should be.**

*

"Rupert, what are you doing?" Olivia yawned sleepily, and opened her eyes. Giles pulled on a pair of discarded track pants, and walked into the living room. With a sigh, Olivia rolled her eyes and kicked the covers off her own side of the bed. 

"Rupert, what's going on?" she asked, buttoning up one of his shirts as she wandered out. He bent over the laptop, tapping keys intently, then scowled in irritation. 

"Blasted machine," he muttered. "Never liked it. Why did I buy it?" Olivia smiled wryly, and folded her arms across the front of her crisp, blue shirt. 

"You didn't. I did," she reminded him, adding, "Come on, Rupert. Don't keep me in the dark." 

"I don't know," he turned around to face her, his hands clenched on his lap. She met his eyes with concern, when Rupert was this tense it was worrying. Whatever had set this off was big. He sighed, seeing the apprehension dawn in her sympathetic brown eyes, and explained. 

"I was asleep. Dreaming, and I saw people I haven't thought about in twenty years. I saw them so vividly..." he broke off at her sceptical expression. "It's not just a bloody dream, Olivia. When I was younger," his words were measured carefully, a pause between each sentence. "I dabbled in some..." he considered the adjective, and settled on, "Some highly dangerous magic, with a crowd of people that also experimented. I had just dropped out of university to go to the Watcher's Academy for two years, and.. well.. I suppose we were all high on life, really." 

"And what happened?" she said gently, sitting down on the arm of their squashy wheat-coloured sofa, adjusting a throw cushion as she did so. He ran his hands through his hair distractedly, standing it on end. 

"We did everything and anything we could. Raised demons, incantations, we got caught up in it all. Seeing their faces in a dream would normally mean nothing but-"Giles broke off, rubbing his temples with his hand, concentrating. "It's happened before. Something from that time... Came back. And there's only one person I know who would have a connection with a dream starting up again."

"Who?" she prompted. He looked up, his eyes steely. 

"Ethan Rayne."

*

He uncapped the bottle, slamming the dirty fridge door shut with his foot as he did so, and took a slug, dropping into one of the brown, threadbare armchairs that stood either side of the fake fireplace, glancing back at the bed, the rumpled sheets thrown back. Somehow, it didn't look quite as tempting some nights at three in the morning as others, he decided ruefully. 

He caught a glimpse of himself in the window, and grimaced. His blue eyes were bloodshot, and creased with tiredness, his thick dark hair greying, and peppered with silver threads. He took another swig from the beer bottle, and stared, unseeing at a mark on the wall. 

Why now? He'd often seen a few of them, playing in his nightmares, when he was drunk, alone, awake in the early hours of the morning, but normally when he was maudlin and thinking back to those times anyway. A heady whirl of sex, black magic and darkness. He scratched, irritated at the mark on his arm. He could still hear the pompous teacher in his head, and see the symbol clearly defined in black ink on the page.

'_Symbol of Rothka, the power wielding entity. Known as a 'gift giver'. Used to mark the vessel in ceremonies to raise him, in the hope he will grant the desires of the candidates, although in most cases, death is the result.'_

Seven years ago he'd done it, a circle of losers that wanted a new way out that didn't cost fifty quid and came in a plastic baggie. He'd asked for a new life. The demon had laughed, and taken one of the others, a slim Chinese girl, still in university. Pretty, too. She'd screamed as her skin sizzled, he remembered. 

Not many of them left. Picked off by pissed off entities through the years. Some had gone straight, hiding tattoos and marks under stiff collars, pretending to be normal. Not him though. Having tasted the power of the darkness, Ethan recklessly clung to it.

Shaking his head, he went back to swigging the beer, and flicked on the TV, slumping back in his armchair.

*

The woman scurried away from the door, her face a mask of fear. "It's happening again," she hissed frantically, clutching a scrumpled tissue to her chest. 

"It's all right, Lavinia," Maud said firmly, patting her hand. "We knew it would." She glanced towards the shadows of another door, her expression questioning. 

A slight figure stepped forward, tiny, and slender, with a crop of white hair, and bright blue eyes, her face grave. She nodded slowly, looking around the group of assembled women, her presence seemingly reassuring to them all, a few breathing sighs of relief. 

"Unfortunately, I think the time has come," she said gently. "Hannah, dear, you, Maud, and, yes," she looked toward the woman in her early thirties comforting Lavinia, "You, Sienna. She responded well to you the first few times, you three will have to go and sort it out this time. Strengthen the web around her, and use more crystals if you have to. We cannot let it inside the house," she added grimly. 

The three nodded briefly, and hurried off to the girl's room while the old woman sank into a chair by the fire, her face pensive. She had fought for a long time, and never yet found anything too difficult to conquer, and now she had. It felt as if she had disappointed herself. 

"Yes, it is time," she muttered to herself, patting the hand that held hers, and smiling up at the tear-streaked Lavinia kindly, "Time to place a call to Mr Giles." 

"Firmness," whispered Maud, her hands clasped around the others' tightening. She looked from one to the other, and began the chant, her eyes now fixed upon the figure in the bed, screaming, a frantic, chilling scream as she curled tighter, the crystals poised around the bed burning with a white light so bright it hurt to look at. 

"Tess, dear," said Hannah in the sort of voice people use to reason with small children, "Don't you think you should come down now?" 

The stiff body hung in mid air, her eyes wide, and terrified.

Don't let them get me 

A/N: See more of Tess next chapter, who are 'they', and why is the eldest woman calling Giles? If you don't know who the women are, I left a huge hunk of 'clue' in the first chapter, Maud's line. Find out all.. scratch that.. Find out _some _next chapter. 

Review please!


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